Literary Thought of the Week (Part 1)

One of the great joys in my life is reading. Before you start thinking I’m some kind of lame ass loser, let me assure you all the other joys in my life are chicks, rock n’ roll music, and illegal narcotics. So yea I still fucking party.

That being said I can honestly say nothing has shaped my view of the world more than the books I have read. With that in mind I thought I would try out a new weekly website segment entitled “Literary Thought of the Week”. The idea is that I will post my favorite quote, passage, or thought from a book that I have been reading . You might be thinking “Wow, Corey this is the gayest most boring post idea, since that post written by the world’s smallest weight lifter” Well I liked what that little weight lifter had to say and if you didn’t then you are probably an anti-Semite. So anyways here goes my first installment.

The book is “Jitterbug Perfume” by Tom Robbins. (A little side note: Tom Robbins is in my opinion the finest author to ever grace this planet. He is to literature what Doug Stanhope is to comedy. I strongly recommend reading anything he’s written. )

Priscilla- “I’m Fine. You’re jumping to conclusions. Besides, unhappiness is natural. I’m not one of those bubbleheads that spend their time trying to avoid the normal misery of life.”

Wiggs Dannyboy- “Sure and life is a lot o’ misery, all right, and death is more misery, yet. Dread, fear, anxiety, guilt, even a bit o’ neurosis, are perfectly natural responses to a life that promises such an unacceptable end. The trick is not to take such responses too seriously, not to trivialize your all too short stay in your carton o’ flesh by cooperatin’ with misery.”

Priscilla- “Seems to me that the so-called happy people are the ones who are trivial. Avoiding reality and never thinking about anything important.”

Wiggs Dannyboy- “Reality is subjective, and there’s an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as ‘important’ only if ‘tis sober and severe. Sure and still you’re right about your Cheerful Dumb, only they’re not so much happy as lobotomized. But your Gloomy Smart are just as ridiculous. When you’re unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don’t think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin’ on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o’ self-indulgence.”

Well there she is. I really think what Dr. Dannyboy says in the last paragraphs is really insightful. I notice that when I am in a bad mood nothing bothers me more than when someone suggests getting out of my bad mood. The thought that someone would have the audacity to even think they could understand the epic problem I am facing is just an insult. Really though when you take a deep look at it almost every problem any of us ever face today is incredibly trivial in nature. Besides death, name one problem you might have that really means something beyond just the surface?

This seems to be one of the major dilemmas people have today; there really are not that many things to worry about. So what do people do they create or inflate problems in an attempt to make themselves feel like their lives are interesting and exciting. As weird as it sounds when someone is sad they want to think that they are the saddest person in the world and that their problem is the worst anyone has ever dealt with. Everyone wants to think they are special and that the world really does revolve around them. To me there really does seem to be a huge amount of self-indulgence involved in our unhappiness.

10 Responses to “Literary Thought of the Week (Part 1)”

Enjoyed your writing…very though provoking. Your passion for reading and how much you enjoy it is not something very many people have. This morning I read another post by someone who appears to be equally passionate about books, and would like to share it with you because I feel you will enjoy it as much as I did. Best,http://helloji.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/smell-of-fresh-ink/

I think that depression is always tied to boredom for me. I think that kind of correlates to what you are saying, because people get bored when they don’t have any real issues in their lives to deal with, and are just plugging the days away.

My stratagy for happyness that has been working is to constantly focus on self-improvement, and that way I never get bored.

I look forward to the new weekly installment. As far as Tom Robbins goes, I enjoyed Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas but it really didn’t do much for me. I liked his characters and everything, so maybe it is just the genre that doesn’t interest me much. I am not sure how to categorize which genre he writes in, but Carl Hiaasen was once recommended to me in the same fashion and I found them similar. They both write humorous accounts of odd/crazy characters who crash into each other while exploring a central mystery (Robbins books, I imagine, satire current socio-political ideas while Hiaasen focuses more on the environment). Come to think of it Hiaasen and Robbins’ books have similar covers and the way their titles match remind me of one another. I think they might be the same person. Of course, I have only read one book by each author (Hiaasen’s was called Sick Puppy and was a good read).

I think its probably on account of my current science fiction bender (finished with Douglas Adams, started Arthur Clarke, and Isaac Asimov is waiting) that leaves me unable to stay interested in any other type of book very long. So I will have to leave Robbins to come back to later.